i'm wrapped in the depths of these deeds that have made me
by tints
Summary: "why do you think it was us? the emotional tether?" or the one where allison learns that maybe isaac's ability to forgive is much more simple than she believes it to be. 3x12.


**disclaimer**: these idiots do not belong to me, but to jeff davis.

for liam.

basically, i love isaac and allison getting along, but i wanted some closure on the whole ring dagger incident. (and it took me ten times to understand that deaton wasn't ship-pushing, but was ensuring that stiles had a tether - which, honestly, how is no one in this show talking about this?) 3x12 missing scene.

title is from neko case's _furnace room lullaby_. unbeta'd. any mistakes are mine.

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**i'm wrapped in the depths of these deeds that have made me**

She wonders if this is the text written at the end of a book, the sort of page one wants to read for closure, to know that those in the story are going to be _okay_. She hasn't seen her father yet, but Deaton promises — or Scott's the one who promises, placing words uncomfortably in Deaton's mouth while they're in private, shivering, towels still wrapped tightly around them — that he'll be there when this is all over, once they find them and all.

Her heart feels heavy. She's not sure if that's the darkness, if Deaton meant it to weigh on her literally, like as if lead has wrapped itself around the organ. But she feels it gnawing on her nerves, the feeling she thought would go away with the ice, but has still lingered around like a scar.

She sits on one of the tables in the veterinary, still with her towel wrapped around her, every edge of it damp. Allison knows she should dress, take the clothes she and Lydia had picked and wrap herself up in them, but she just can't quite find the strength in her to move just yet.

Her gaze is on the floor when she sees his shadow, his shoes coming into view as he pulls himself up and onto the table gracefully. It kind of reminds her of how he moves as a wolf now, no longer clumsy on those long legs of his, but strong. She's never really noticed him until now, but there's a different level of strength in his stride, shifting as he moves from underneath Derek's thumb to stand beside Scott.

He tugs at her towel. "You're going to get hypothermia if you keep hugging that," he says.

She glances over at him, hair slightly plastered to her forehead. In his hands is a roughly folded, fluffy, dry towel. He gestures to it with a slight movement of it, as if suggesting that she take it instead.

Her tight grip on her damp one falters as he pulls at it, tossing it to his other side, as he opens the dry towel and hugs it around her. His hands linger on her shoulders, but she thinks it's because he's waiting for her to get a grip on it to hug it around her as quickly as the warm dampness of the other towel leaves her.

"Thanks," she says, pulling at the edges of it to cover her. She knows she should dress now, that his presence means something, but she can't quite find the strength she had lost in that ice bath. She needs to linger like a ghost for the moment.

"Figured if you were too stubborn to get dressed that you'd need something dry," he says. He glances at her, his lips slightly curved at the corners. He's making fun of her. "You should, you know."

Allison knows, but she's afraid that any movement she makes, anything that's sudden, might shift some sort of balance that lingers in the air. Her dad for her. Her for her dad. It's tentative and unknown, sort of like them — _Isaac and Allison_ — and she's too afraid to push it and lose it.

Pushing her half-dry hair out of her face, she looks at him, causing him to shy his gaze away. "Why do you think it was us?"

His brows pull together. He looks at somewhere near her bare feet. She curls her toes in. "What was us?"

"The emotional tether," she says.

He opens his mouth as if to speak, but lets out a breath instead. She's asking a question where she already knows the answer. In any scenario they play, Stiles would be the odd one out, and that, in itself, was never an option.

Shifting slightly, she nudges him with her shoulder. Sometimes, she has to coax him like a wolf. Entice him with a treat before he seems to trust her enough to approach. He hides beneath that layer of fur like it's a blanket sometimes. "I did stab you once."

He looks at her then, eyebrows raised. "Twenty times."

Shame floods her, despite how he's grinning as he says it. She'd gone after him like a predator to prey without second thought of the boy who laid underneath the teeth and yellow eyes. He'd been the enemy, just as Derek had been, just as they all had been. She hadn't thought of anything more beyond that. "I honestly didn't think you were counting at the time."

"Kind of hard not to," he says, nudging her back. She's not quite sure if it's on purpose. Isaac's so tall; he takes up so much room that when he shifts the slightest bit, the entire world shakes beneath her feet. He doesn't look at her, paying more respect to her polished toes, or the shiny, linoleum floor, "I was planning for payback. It's why I kept count. Or rough count."

Allison pulls the towel tighter. It feels like a second skin stretched across her back, plastering her damp camisole against her flesh. She feels too thick, as if she can't quite hide beneath this newly acquired layer of skin. "Are you going to get it?"

He looks at her, eyes wide. They're bright blue and utterly clueless. "Get what?"

"Payback." She curls her fingers tighter into the cloth. She swings her feet a little. The movements don't shake the shame or the guilt that still lingers there, like a tattoo that's long gone but still sits at home under the skin in memory. "I did stab you twenty times with ring daggers when maybe I shouldn't have."

His brows crease together. Maybe he's noticed that there's a shift in her demeanour. Even back in the janitor's closet, back when he had no reason at all to even speak to her, or even promise her to keep his lips sealed about her whereabouts that windy night, he still had a humourous curve to his lips that seemed to warm her up as if she were cold. Isaac looks at her unblinkingly, "You apologised."

Now that Allison's dug her hole, she needs to keep digging until she finds the root of the tree. Arching herself forward, she curves her back to look at her own feet. His linger by hers, almost reaching the ground. "You never came across to me as the type to accept an apology like that."

"Why?" He ducks his head to try and catch her gaze, but her hair slips away to try and plaster itself back to her cheeks. She lets it. Isaac's gotten so good at bending and slouching, making himself appear smaller and less intimidating in size, that she wishes he sat at his full height, still so impossible to reach for someone like her. She tries not to look at him.

Shrugging, she takes an accidental breath in, "You just always seemed very angry to me." And she knows why he was, even if she's never properly been told outright. Scott knows more than she does, but he's let her know that Isaac's someone who's sensitive to those around him. He thinks he's alone when he's not. He's too blind by his fear of being _it_ that he's forcing himself to _live_ it. But Allison tries to cover it up, the implication that perhaps she knows something personal, only because Scott might know. His confidence in Scott shouldn't be broken over the untrue implication that his confidante's girlfriend knows his personal business because Scott has a big mouth. She gives him the respect to glance at him from underneath her hair, "You were ruthless with the twins. Why not with me?"

"Scott trusts you. And I trust Scott," he replies quickly, automatically. It's a cop-out. Isaac's a gravedigger by nature, but he's barely scratching the surface with his honesty.

She straightens her own back, making herself slightly taller than him as he stays hunched over, elbows on his thighs. "But do you?"

His brows crease together as he shakes his head a little, glancing to the side at nothing before his blue eyes hit hers. "Do I ..."

"Trust me."

He's quiet. Allison's heart picks up pace, as if she's running in the woods. She thinks he can hear it, possibly being suffocated by it. The veterinary is quiet with an internally distraught Stiles in its clutches. Isaac leans on those elbows of his, the bones digging into the flesh of his thighs hidden beneath his jeans. He's looking somewhere in the distance. "Did you trust me to bring you back?" His gaze flicks to hers, but he stays hunched over.

The answer is on the tip of her tongue, but Allison has never given Isaac the answers he wants without a round of playing. They're like dogs, fighting over a bone that they soon forget about. "You didn't answer my question."

He stays hunched over before drawing himself back with a breath. Her chest fills with butterflies made of lead. Resting in his lap are his hands, clutched together, his long fingers threaded so tightly she's surprised he hasn't broken the bones in them with his fierce grip. He looks at her, says, "Did you?"

"Yes," she says, without hesitation.

"Then, yeah," he says, nodding. "I don't know when I did." His hands untie themselves. Palming his legs, they move until they hit his knees. He's hunched again, his gaze settling on anywhere but her person. "Maybe it was on the night that you obviously were sitting at home and doing your homework and not saving our asses. Or maybe it was when you didn't look at me like I was the worst thing in the world after the incident in the closet." He looks down, contemplative. She feels like saying something, takes a breath in to do so, but his lips shift. He smirks, looking back at her, "Or maybe it was when you pulled me through a window like you were the wolf and I was the hunter who weighed like paper."

And it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack, the moment when Isaac started to trust her like he trusts Scott. But she's smiling. And maybe not having all the answers to all her questions is okay if he's looking at her like that and those lead-ridden butterflies shed that weight.

"Thanks for the towel," she says. "I really don't want the flu."

"Yeah," he says, grinning. "That'd suck. For me. Since I'm pretty sure an Allison Argent with the flu who is bedridden means I'm not going to survive without a few broken bones."

"You can look out for yourself," she says with a laugh.

"Maybe," he says with a shrug. "But sometimes it's nice to have a guardian angel."


End file.
